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6 Lies Sex Addicts Tell Themselves After They Get Caught · Sex & Porn Addiction Recovery with Russell Beebe

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I'll stop.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said that to myself for years, but tomorrow never came.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you got caught, you're probably telling yourself six lies.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And these six lies are holding you back from your own recovery and from making things right with your wife.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Russell Beebe.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a licensed mental health counselor and certified sex addiction therapist with over 17 years of sexual sobriety and recovery.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I help men who participate in infidelity, cheating behaviors, sexual compulsion stop and start the healing in their marriage.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to talk about the six lies that are holding you back in your recovery and in the healing in your relationship.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: The first lie is that I'm not a sex addict, that I could stop on my own.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I could stop anytime.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves this for years.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I did in my life, it was just, you know, I'm going along and I had these red flags that happened, you know, womanizing pornography, feeling terrible afterwards, you know, getting in trouble with a girlfriend, you know, all these little signposts that came along.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then as my behavior escalated into other types of behaviors, from pornography to strip clubs to different things, I started to think in the back of my mind, like maybe this isn't such a great thing.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened was I decided I would not do certain behaviors.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'd make that determination.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be determined to stop certain behaviors, and then I would do them again.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: For many, many years, I told myself that I still had control over the situation.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so this happens for many men.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They tell themselves this, they do the behavior they feel bad, they tell themselves they're going to stop, then they do it again, but they persist in this lie to themselves that I can stop at any time.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I'll get it together and I'll be able to stop.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And turns out not to be true.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Evidence shows for many, many years, for years and years and years for myself, I demonstrated that even when I wanted to stop certain acting out behaviors, that I couldn't.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what you want to do is take a look at how many times you've tried to stop.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you haven't tried to stop, that's different.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you could do a test, which is to say, here are the sexual acting out behaviors.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if you've been cheating on your wife or there's been, you know, chat online or something like that, and you feel terrible and you want to stop that, and you have never tried to stop that, try stopping.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I would say is try stopping for a year and see how long you can go.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Most men, if they really have sex addiction, they're only going to be able to go for a couple of days.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you set out to do a year, three days later you do again.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: If that's you, you could be a sex addict.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it might mean that you're not able to stop on your own, as it was the case for me.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing to ask yourself is if you could have stopped, wouldn't you have done it by now?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So so many men, we don't get into recovery.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: We don't admit that we're sex addicts until something really, really bad happens.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I look, I reflect on it, and it was like all those years that I told myself that I had it under control, I have to admit like 10 years or whatever it was, 10, 15 years.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: If I could have stopped, why didn't I?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if I tried so many times and demonstrated over and over again that I couldn't, why did it take me so long to get to a place where I'm like, oh my God, I think that this is an addiction.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just because we hope and wish and hope and wish for tomorrow.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I'll stop, and then I don't have to worry about the consequences of my actions.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: We rarely get help until something bad happens.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we persist in this lie, persist, persist, persist, tell ourselves it's not as bad as we think it is.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, our wife sees the receipt from the escort agency or realizes that we've been chatting with an ex-girlfriend online or sexting with somebody.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden she's like, I don't think I can be in this marriage.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get a divorce and you're never gonna see your kids again.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden we get knocked out of this denial that we have about the progression basically of an addiction.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then we say, okay, it's time to get some help.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I can do this on my own.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we admit for the first time that it could be an addiction.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the bad news is that you got caught, but the good news is that now long you're no longer in that denial, and that's the starting point for actually getting help and the starting point for recovery into sex addiction.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the second lie, and I used to tell myself this all the time, the second lie was, and I persisted in this for years, was I'm gonna act out today, and then tomorrow I'm gonna get it together.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get back into the program and I'm gonna get sober.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that tomorrow never came.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow was just another day to act out.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was connected to the belief that I had that I could stop this on my own.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if I had the mental obsession and I really wanted to act out today, and I would get sucked into that addictive, compulsive behavior and that ritual, it's a it's a ritual and a trance that we go through when we act out sexually.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I could go do it, I could have my fun, I could get out of myself, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I could do it just one more time.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I told myself, if I promised myself that tomorrow, after today, after tonight, whatever, I'm done forever, I'm gonna stop forever, then I made it okay for me to do it today.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what would happen because I'm an addict is I would promise myself I'm not gonna do it again.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then tomorrow would come and then something would happen, I'd get triggered, whatever, I'd get that restless, irritable, and discontent.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'd actually make it a couple of days.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Even times when I was in recovery, I'd make it a couple of weeks.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually what would happen, I was get I would get the mental obsession to act out and it would grow and grow and grow.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that obsession in my mind to act out would become so unbearable that I'd have to tell, I'd have to do the acting out just to get relief from the obsession.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I would tell myself that lie again.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, tomorrow I'm gonna do better.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'll act out.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I'll be even more determined to stop for good.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth was, is tomorrow came and it was just another day to act out.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I had completely lost control of that cycle, which is mental obsession preceded by acting out, mental obsession preceded by acting out.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how determined I was to get my shit together tomorrow, tomorrow was a day where I would fall prey to the mental obsession and I would just do it again.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I did this over and over and over again.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I would promise myself for years, I would promise myself I'll just do better tomorrow.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And tomorrow would come and left to my own devices, my own skill set in life, my own ability to deal with this addiction, couldn't do it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow was just another day to act out.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So then line number three is it's not cheating, it was just online, it wasn't in person.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what sex addicts tell themselves.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I flirted, I sexted, I did, it was only cheating online, it wasn't in person, so what's the big deal?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But here's a question: how do you think she feels about that?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think your wife feels about you sending pictures to somebody online or chatting with an ex-girlfriend or paying somebody in OnlyFans?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: To her, that feels like cheating.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then another really good question is to ask yourself if she did that to you, how would you feel?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Would you feel like that was cheating?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: If your wife was flirting or sexting with somebody online, would that feel okay to you?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you didn't feel betrayed?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Most men would answer that question, like, yeah, I would feel terrible if she did that to me.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to look at the word infidelity.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we call it cheating.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Cheating tends to be related to I met with somebody and I had sex with them and I cheated on my wife, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Infidelity is more of a it's a betrayal of trust, either emotionally, physically, or in this day and age, digitally.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So what that really means, the infidelity comes not just from physically, necessarily physically meeting with somebody, although if you do that, obviously that's cheating and that's infidelity and it's incredibly damaging.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the infidelity can come from an emotional attachment.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It can come from doing things online as though you're actually cheating in person.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that infidelity breaks and breaches the trust, and your partner or your wife feels betrayed by that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about infidelity online is that addictions are progressive.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So our behaviors get worse, they get more often, they get more intense.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're just chatting online or sexting online or doing OnlyFans online, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then one thing leads to another, and then you meet somebody online, and then you guys start talking about meeting.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, with sex addiction, because it's progressive, that man will eventually, if he keeps going down that road, will eventually hook up in person.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So even the infidelity online, many times with sex addiction, as the addiction progresses, will lead to in-person cheating or in-person infidelity.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So lie number four is if she knew the truth, it would hurt her.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or if she knew the truth, she would leave me.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: My experience in my own recovery, and then my experience working with hundreds of clients over the years, is that the truth comes out eventually anyway.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're persisting in a sex addiction, you're participating in infidelity, eventually she's gonna find out.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or even if you're just looking at pornography, she's told you to stop and you're lying about it, eventually she is gonna find out.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's much better for you to just get into recovery, get honest about that, than for her to discover it and then you try to lie.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what most men do is they they hide it and then she finds something and she confronts them and then he gaslights her.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the betrayal is not even just around the behavior.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if you're doing something like cheating or infidelity, that's very painful to a partner.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: But what's even more, almost sometimes more painful, is the lying and hiding and gaslighting and minimizing and the trickled out truth that they experience during that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the betrayal comes from he's been being dishonest with me.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: If he's dishonest about this one thing, what are the other things that he's been dishonest about?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they their whole life gets turned upside down because they don't know what's true and what's not, and they don't know what he's hiding or what he's trying to, you know, make it seem like this is going on when something else is going on.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Big part of the betrayal for the partner is the dishonesty.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have clients come in all the time and she's like, I could almost get over the behavior, but it's the years and years of lying and gaslighting that's the most hurtful to me.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that truth comes out, anyways.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what I have found in my own experience with my wife and healing in the relationship and in working with clients is that if a man, if a couple comes in and the man gets into recovery and his wife is willing to allow him to do that recovery and see how it goes and stay with him, the majority of the men that we work with in the program, the marriage is saved by them getting into recovery and learning how to start that healing in the relationship.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the lie they tell themselves that she's gonna leave me, although sometimes that's true, it's actually a very small percent of men that get into recovery that are in a marriage where there's betrayal trauma and there's been infidelity and cheating.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually they get into recovery and they do well and they do what they need to do, not only for their own recovery, but also to support the betrayal trauma that their partners experience.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Very small percent of them actually break up and and lose the marriage.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's the experience in my program.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: In my program, the majority of our couples actually stay together.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And many of them, it takes a while, so it's not instantaneous, but many of them actually experience something in their relationship where they'll say, our relationship, despite everything that's happened, our relationship is better than it ever has been.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that was true in my own experience too.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: When I got into recovery, it was like a year of being uncertain what was going to happen in the marriage.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I just did my recovery and, you know, tried to be an honest man and tried to support her the best I could.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then over time we talked, and you know, there was talks at time about divorce and separation, but over time we wanted to work it out and she saw that I was doing my recovery and we worked through it.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was 17 years ago, and we have a great marriage and a great family life now, and that's what I'm experiencing in our program as well.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Guys that come in and really do the work, really support their partners through betrayal trauma.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the majority of them, the marriages are staying together.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it turns out not to be true that if she finds out, she's gonna leave.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like that might be threatened, that might actually happen.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you get into recovery and she's willing to stick around to see how you do with that recovery, majority of those people, those couples actually stay together.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you're listening to this, I don't recommend that you necessarily go and disclose everything to your partner all of a sudden.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a very therapeutic process for that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I do recommend is that you come in, you get some kind of recovery either with us in our program before you sort of dump all the truth onto your partner, um you do what's called a therapeutic disclosure, uh, which is a process where both sides have a support, have support, she has support, you have support, and you're able to deliver that information to her in a supportive environment rather than dumping it on somebody because that can cause a lot of distress.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm not I'm not saying you should continue lying and being dishonest with your partner.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying if you're getting into recovery and there's betrayal there and there's some truth that needs to come out, um, you want to leverage the supports that you have, the professional support that you have in order to decide when and what to say and how to say it, rather than just going and dumping all this stuff on.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying to you, it's okay to be honest, but I think it's also important for me to tell you to do that uh with the with professional support so that you minimize the amount of traumatic effect you'll have on your partner.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So line number five comes from something from Patrick Carnes, which is sex is my most important need.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: most sex addicts think sex is really important.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I certainly do as a sex addict.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's an important part of my life, it's an important part of my relationship with my wife.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And over the years, I don't know how to put it any other way, but I was super hyper sexual, and most sex addicts are.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we put a high amount of importance on sexual activity in general and sex in general.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sex is God given, nothing wrong with having a high sex drive.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: But many men, especially sex addicts, think it's a need like air or food, right?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a need, it's a desire, it's a God-given desire and it's an instinct for procreation and it's enjoyable, and there's nothing wrong with it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a need and it's something that we can withhold.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, if I feel sexual energy come up in that moment, I don't necessarily need to satisfy that urge.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't satisfy that urge, if I don't, you know, for lack of a better way to put it, take care of myself or engage with my partner, or God forbid, go act out, right?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need, like, I'm not gonna die unless I have a sexual release.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really more of a desire and an instinct than a need.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's certainly not something that I'm entitled to in every instance, whenever I feel sexual, I'm not entitled to a sexual release.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And sex addiction is essentially that instinct gonna rise.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's an instinct for procreation, sex is very enjoyable, and sex addiction is really that on steroids.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens is a man, and this was me, who was like, every time I had a sexual thought, I had to take care of that, I had to do something about that.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens with sex addicts.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: They get so overwhelmed by the desire for sex and for release that they just do it and they just find different ways to do it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so if my wife doesn't want to have sex with me, then I'll go find another opportunity to do it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And like sex addicts, this is part of this lie.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sex addicts feel entitled to that.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll cut, they'll even come in and they'll be like, oh, well, my wife was pregnant and she wasn't having sex with me, and that's when I cheated on her.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it it almost makes it seem like uh you're that that guy was entitled to do that horrific thing to his wife.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case, or even just with pornography, you weren't having sex, so I started looking at pornography all the time.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: They use that as an excuse and an entire what we call an entitlement.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: They feel entitled to have sex whenever they want it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of people just think, well, it's a need, I deserve it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: If my wife's not taking care of me, then it's okay for me to do whatever.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's just BS, in my opinion, and it's certainly BS for a sex addict.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately or fortunately, a sex addict has to have sex as optional.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sex is optional.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Something I learned in Sexaholics Anonymous, and it's really interesting.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that I I get to a point where I don't feel sexual or I don't have desire for sex, and even like if I if I don't get it, that I can't be disappointed by that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But my reaction to a sexual feeling and sex in general has to be optional.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have to be able to feel sexual, as a sex addict in recovery, feel sexual, realize I'm not in a situation where I can engage sexually with my partner and then be okay with that and then move on and go do something else productive.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would say that when I stopped satisfying every sexual urge I had in my life, what happened was I became very productive because I was like, okay, I'm feeling sexual, my partner's not here or we're not engaged sexually.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just gonna feel that feeling, not do anything about it, because if as a sex addict in recovery, if I did something about that, that would put me in danger of acting out, or that would actually be acting out.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would be like, okay, top line behavior.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: What should I be doing in this moment instead of acting out sexually like I used to?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can go and be productive at work, or I can do that home task that I've been putting off for a couple of months.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can go hiking, I can go running, I can go do yoga, I can pray, I can meditate, all these things that I missed when I was acting out.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the result of me just having the attitude in recovery that you know what, sex is optional.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I still have sex, I still like sex, but I just don't do that, I don't get that sexual release like I used to all the time.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm able to sit in those feelings and not act on them and then go do something productive.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's really fantastic.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then the sixth lie I see all the time is I've stopped.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody comes into recovery, they've stopped their behavior and they're like, why can't she move on?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why does she keep wanting to talk about it?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this happens a lot with the guys that come into our program.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: They come in, they start doing the work, they get sexually sober, they start feeling better, and they're a month, maybe a month and a half into this.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And their wife, who is experiencing betrayal trauma from their behavior, still wants to talk about it, still has questions, still gets upset, still threatens divorce, still has issues with it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then they come back into the group, right, in the program, and they're like, I don't understand why she, you know, I'm doing so good for a month and a half.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why she's she's still upset, why she can't get over this.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, dude, it's gonna take her a long time because of your behavior.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've actually caused what looks like PTSD symptoms, what we call betrayal trauma.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not gonna resolve very quickly.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So your job in recovery is not only to take care of your recovery, but not to expect her to be in a place where she forgives you before she's ready.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if she wants to talk in the middle of the night, if she wants to talk every day, if she wants to talk for hours a day, it's your job in recovery to support her empathetically, put yourself in her shoes, listen to her, and to take that all in without saying, get over it, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: After a month and a half.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely ridiculous.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: With betrayal trauma, we're talking about years sometimes.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in recovery and you're you've stopped and she's still upset and still has questions and still wants to talk about and still blaming and still threatening, that's totally okay and that's totally normal.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Get used to that feeling because the more you can sit with that, be present to it, be empathetic towards it, the quicker get this, the quicker she's gonna heal.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: The more you sort of minimize, deflect, expect her to get over it, expect her to move on, the worse it's gonna get.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: She's just gonna feel like you're doing what you always did, which is minimize and gaslight and tell it, you know, now, now that you're in recovery for just a couple of months, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now she's the one with the problem.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's garbage.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You caused the pain in her.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: You need to learn how to do it, how to communicate with her and have an empathetic stance and help her go through what she needs to go through for as long as she needs to go through it in order for you to heal.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I do promise you, if you do that, if you persist in that at the beginning, it seems like forever.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wow, she's she's still struggling and months and years go by, but over time, it starts most of the time with couples, and this happened in my marriage too, things kind of calm down.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm 17 years sexually sober, 17 years into the healing with my wife, and we almost never talk about the sex addiction anymore.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: We do, but it's productive, um, but not like it was at the beginning, where there was a lot of questions and a lot of back and forth and things like that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it does get better over time, but don't expect her just to move on just because you stopped for a short period of time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take a lot more work and time than that.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, if this is all making sense to you, a large part of what we do in our program is break through these beliefs, you know.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you do written processes, you're in groups, you have one-to-one coaching, and it's all there to help you do two things.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Get honest with yourself, get honest with your partner, actually, three things.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Get honest with your health, get honest with your partner, and start the healing in your relationship.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, most men come in, there's a level of denial, there's a level of lying to ourselves, and that's where our sickness really lies.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we call underlying issues.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so when they come in and they start working through the recovery process, which is a step-by-step process that gets them really honest with themselves, all these lies and false beliefs that we have get smashed.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: We start living in truth, we start being honest with ourselves, we start being honest with our partners, and we start to feel better.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's really the foundation of recovery.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're relating to this and you want us to help you with this because you're experiencing that in your sex addiction and in your marriage, in your partnership, let us know somewhere around this video.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be instructions on how to reach out to us.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's to book a call with us to see your partner can be on that call.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's to send us a DM so we can ask a couple of questions.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh either way, what we'll do is we'll get to know you a little bit.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see if it's a good fit.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about what it would look like working together.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but go ahead and do that if you're interested and we'll talk soon.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're wondering if your wife is ever going to trust you again, watch the next video popping up on the screen now.